


Make Believe

by ArchitectofSorrow



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Agent Carter Season One, F/M, Female-Centric, POV Dottie Underwood, POV Female Character, POV Villian, villian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6980527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchitectofSorrow/pseuds/ArchitectofSorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>//Dottie bends in front of Peggy’s mirror. She looks at herself. She looks at Steve Rogers, Captain America, a thin boy in dog tags that Miss Sentimental keeps in her room. He has a narrow, pale face with a long nose, blond hair, and blue eyes. The picture is black and white, but she can fill in the color. He looks like her, only uglier.//</p>
<p>Dottie tries to make sense of herself and reality as she looks through Peggy's room. Character study of Dottie Underwood in Agent Carter Season One, Episode Five, "The Iron Ceiling."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Believe

Dottie bends in front of Peggy’s mirror. She looks at herself. She looks at Steve Rogers, Captain America, a thin boy in dog tags that Miss Sentimental keeps in her room. He has a narrow, pale face with a long nose, blond hair, and blue eyes. The picture is black and white, but she can fill in the color. He looks like her, only uglier.

In another universe, she could have been him. Both orphans, both born to be weapons. She smiles. Steve isn’t smiling. His lips droop. He’s tired. He isn’t even looking at the camera. She wonders what he was thinking when they took the picture. Did he know he was going to die? Was he scared? He looks so skinny. Records state he had stomach ulcers among other ailments. His body was breaking. Without the super soldier serum, he would have died. He did die. 

She wishes she had his costume. Ever since she was tiny, she’s loved dressing up, pretending to be other people. It was easier to do that then to be her, whoever she was, maybe no one now. When she killed the other girls in training she was a lion, tearing up her prey, or a jaguar, an anaconda. The costume would have to be tailored, but overall, it wouldn’t be bad. She’s tall like Steve, only three inches shorter, and she can make her eyes wide and innocent like the good captain’s. 

Or she could be Peggy. She sees lipstick on the dresser and picks it up. She smiles again. ‘Hello, I’m Peggy Carter.’ She sneers through the affected accent, turns the tube, puts it up towards her face and sniffs. It reads ‘sweet dreams’ and smells like sleep. She’ll take this too, along with the Stark weapon photo she pulled from Peggy’s music box. What does it say about an agent when she puts important photos in a music box? Dottie doesn’t know. She can’t figure out people. Peggy told her there were fake people and real people. She said ‘fake’ with disdain, like they had a choice, and what they chose was wrong. Dottie doesn’t know how to be real. She doesn’t even know her real name. She’s just a skin-clothed skeleton following orders. Dottie straightens up and goes to the door. She stops there, wavering, looking back at Peggy’s room, at her bed, where her enemy sleeps, uncuffed. And now she’s made a decision. She’ll be Steve. 

Steve shuts the door.


End file.
